Barbour Scholar

Meera was drawn to U-M even while completing her master’s degree in Control Systems in India. She was studying the research of Professor Semyon Meerkov, a renowned U-M faculty member, for her masters’ thesis; she found his work and the whole domain of controls fascinating, and she wanted to continue this line of study for her doctoral research. She was highly encouraged by her professor in India who told her that if she wanted to learn control systems, U-M was a great place to go.

For Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur, graduate education is part of a University of Michigan family legacy. She and her mother were both Barbour Scholars at Michigan, an almost century-old fellowship program for Asian women established by Levi Barbour, then a regent of the University. For both of Jiu-Hwa’s parents, education was the touchstone of their lives and a value they instilled in their daughter. But education wasn’t taken for granted—in fact, as Jiu-Hwa points out, “it’s my parents who struggled.”